Maintenance of satellite formations using environmental forces

• The maintenance of satellite formations using environmental forces is examined.
• Satellites are equipped with solar flaps or aerodynamic flaps.
• Open-loop and closed-loop control laws for desired rotation of flaps are proposed.
• Numerical simulation results validate the proposed control strategy.
• The relative position errors are found to be bounded with few meters.

This paper examines the maintenance of satellite formations using two environmental forces: solar radiation pressure and aerodynamic forces. It is assumed that the satellites are equipped with solar flaps or aerodynamic flaps. Control using aerodynamic flaps is considered for satellite formations in LEO while solar flaps is applied to formations in LEO as well as GEO. The simple control laws based on open-loop and closed-loop control methods are designed for required rotation of the flaps to achieve desired formation keeping. The feasibility of the proposed schemes is proven via stability analyses followed by numerical simulations. A linear flap rotation scheme is found to keep the relative position errors bounded to ±5 m. The proposed control methods show the effectiveness of the use of solar radiation pressure and aerodynamic forces for satellite formation flying.